Why Men Fear Being Seen as “Uncommitted” at Work — And How Their Silence Is Costing You
In April 2026, fathers gained a day-one right to paternity leave. So why are the men it was written for still likely to be afraid to use it?
The old 26-week qualifying period is gone. On paper, UK workplaces have never been more father-friendly.
And yet the men it was written for may still hesitate to take their leave, and not just because it’s an unpaid entitlement.
Despite the pandemic creating a sea change in many men's attitude towards flexible and remote working, the fear of being seen as "uncommitted" runs deep. It rarely shows up in an engagement survey, no one writes it on an exit interview, but it lives in the gap between policy and uptake.
Those, usually silent, thoughts, about what it means to be a ‘good dad’ and what that means to men’s engagement with policy, costs you money, it costs you talent, and it quietly undermines the very gender-equality goals you're working towards.
Here's how.
Why do men hestitate?
When a man hesitates before asking to work flexibly, it's rarely about a lack of commitment. More often, he's reading his environment carefully, and, all too often, reading it accurately.
BBC Research looked into this topic
“Most cite fears of being discriminated against professionally, missing out on pay rises and promotions, being marginalised or even mocked as reasons for not taking time off.”
The signals are everywhere.
Childcare is treated as optional for dads. There's the unspoken assumption that he doesn't really "need" the flexibility a mother would. And there's the line so many fathers hear, in one form or another: "Can't your wife do that?" Society deems men not to "need" flexibility, and frames their caring responsibilities as a matter of perceived optionality.
Until we talk more broadly about flexible working being ‘a man thing’ too, we are doomed to pigeon-hole genders into cages called caring and breadwinning. These cages are traps; traps that keep women from achieving their potential in the workplace and men from being the active and involved fathers they don't remember growing up.
The fear of looking uncommitted, in other words, isn't a personal failing, it's a rational response to cultural norms that still send signals based on gendered views about roles at work and at home.
Which means the fix is cultural too.
The silence is built on a myth
Here's the cruel twist: most men stay silent because they assume their colleagues would judge them for speaking up. They are almost always wrong.
When the Behavioural Insights Team worked with Santander UK they found that men assumed only around 65% of their peers would encourage a male colleague to work flexibly. The real figure was 99%. Nearly every man believed he was in a minority that, in fact, barely existed.
Psychologists call this pluralistic ignorance, privately holding an opinion while mistakenly believing most people disagree with you. Men are hiding from a peer group disapproval that, for the most part, isn't there.
And the moment that myth is broken, behaviour shifts.
When men in the study were simply told how supportive their colleagues actually were, their stated intention to take five to eight weeks of leave rose by 62%. There is safety in numbers, and it works in your favour as soon as you make it visible.
If men think other men are going to take it, they will too. It's a domino effect — and it tends to start with men simply hearing the truth about how their colleagues feel.
Silence builds a two-tier workplace
This is the point where the issue stops being a "dad problem" and becomes everyone's problem.
When initiatives such as flexible and part-time working, and enhanced parental leave are seen as just for women, men are reluctant to access them and a two-tier system emerges in the workplace. Assumptions about who is likely to take extended parental leave create the opportunity for discrimination against women long before they become mums, and even if they don't.
A fear of being seen as "uncommitted" and losing out on opportunities to progress, and thereby provide for their family, puts off men who may want to access flexible working, especially in workplace cultures that see childcare responsibilities as optional for dads. The "can't your wife do that?" culture is a real barrier to men seeking flexible working patterns.
So ingrained is the societal assumption that men in heterosexual relationships can opt out of domestic and caring responsibilities that PhD research from Anneke Schaefer at the University of Liverpool found that single dads who start new heterosexual relationships conceal that fact, to protect the flexible and remote working they fear they'd otherwise lose.
What the silence costs you
The TUC has found that half of new dads don't get the flexibility they ask for
“Half (53%) of new dads and partners entitled to paternity leave who request flexible working don’t get the flexibility they ask for
The poll found that those on lower incomes were even less likely to have their flexible working requests accepted”
The Fatherhood Institute calls it a "flex stigma": fathers are usually the higher earner, which makes asking feel riskier, and when they do ask, they are very likely to be turned down.
Here's the part that should concern any business leader.
Refused fathers don't simply absorb the disappointment. They vote with their feet, changing jobs in search of greater flexibility, and creating hidden recruitment, retention and productivity costs for the employers they leave behind. The discontent that won’t have shown up in a survey ends up as a resignation that's hard to account for.
And the new legislation, welcome as it is, contains a trap. The April 2026 day-one right is for the leave — but statutory paternity pay still requires 26 weeks' continuous service.
Meanwhile the tougher "reasonableness" test for refusing flexible-working requests isn't due until 2027.
The law has moved, but workplace culture hasn't always kept pace. That gap, between the right a father now has on paper and whether he feels able to use it, is where much of your retention risk sits.
The fix isn't another policy
If the fear is cultural and the silence is a misread, the lever isn't a new benefit. It's visibility.
It means making the support both real and visible. Encouraging senior men be seen taking leave and working flexibly. Sharing findings like that 99% figure openly, so men understand what their colleagues genuinely think — because the evidence suggests they'll believe it, and act on it. And treating the silence as something to be gently corrected rather than quietly tolerated.
We need to put fatherhood on a pedestal
So here's the question worth sitting considering - if you have the policy in place, do you have the culture that supports men to actually use it? Until you do, you're offering a right that too few fathers feel able to take.
Curious how your organisation measures up? The New Parent Employer Scorecard takes a few minutes and shows you exactly where your support for working dads stands today — and where the quick wins are.